Hi guys,
At 12:42 AM 8/22/98 -0700, you wrote:
> PDF files are AWKWARD AS HECK to use! They assume a standard printer
>page, not a CRT. You will often find that to see some things, you end up
>magnifying till you have to scroll left and right for each line! I know,
>I was working with a company to set up some utilities for them. FORGET
>IT!
I have to agree that .pdf files can be awkward to create and use. And I
wouldn't use them for strict online browsing. But if you're going to be
supplying relatively large documents like manuals, you know, the kind of
things company and corporate type engineers and techs might print out so
that they can take copy to the workbench, .pdf printouts are far superior
to those of straight html. Be forewarned though: setting up Acrobat
Exchange (including distiller and the postscript printers you will need for
various types of pages) correctly and using it is not necessarily for the
faint of heart. But it can be done. One just has to have the right
information available, be properly trained. And with a little bit of
experience, making a .pdf document comes as naturally as making an html web
page.
> The world has gone to HTML. Use it whenever you can!
>
> PDF is intended for printing hard copy. If you want to print hard
>copy, then PDF is a reasonable decision. But not for CRT use!
And that's the distinction. I make .pdf files out of the 100-300 page
manuals I create. Yes, they are *very* large in file size. But for
distribution to people across networks and the net, nothing works better
short of mailing hard copy. And since they look just like hard copy when
printed (oxymoron?), customers love their availability. The quick access
they can afford to technical documentation helps avoid the "oh, I didn't
get that manual with your product," preventing customer down-time. When
you're dealing with multi-million dollar contracts (or any contract for
that matter), that's just the sort of thing you want to avoid.
Jan Cohen
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